Parents will soon know when a diaper must be modified — before all of the crying starts.
Scientists from Penn State University have created a “smart diaper” — a nappy with a built-in sensor that can send an alert to a phone once it gets wet.
The diaper is made out of paper that has been pre-treated with sodium chloride (salt) and has a top level view of a circuit board on it that’s traced over with a pencil to transfer graphite to the surface with a tiny lithium battery attached.
Researchers embedded 4 of the sensors between the layers of a diaper to be able to create the “smart diaper,” as detailed within the journal Nano Letters.
Once the diaper gets wet, the graphite reacts with the liquid and sodium chloride and, because it’s absorbed by the paper, electrons will flow to the graphite to set off a sensor.
The sensor will send a message to a phone, alerting the individual that the newborn’s diaper must be modified.
It will probably even provide details about how wet the diaper is, which could let parents resolve if the diaper must be modified immediately.
“That application was actually born out of private experience,” lead writer Dr. Huanyu Cheng, who’s the daddy to 2 young children, said. “There’s no easy option to know the way wet is wet, and that information might be really useful for fogeys.”
The sensor will also be utilized in hospitals or nursing homes — and may even help discover some major health concerns corresponding to cardiac arrest or pneumonia.
“The sensor can provide data within the short-term, to alert for diaper changes, but in addition within the long-term, to indicate patterns that may inform parents in regards to the overall health of their child,” Huanyu said.
Researchers also tested the device in a face mask and located that it could determine three respiration states — deep, regular and rapid — and will potentially provide data that might detect the onset of a heart attack or when someone stops respiration.
It will probably also sense humidity changes within the air as a part of a non-contact switch with the presence of a finger, without the finger actually touching the device.
“The atoms on the finger don’t need to the touch the button, they only must be near the surface to diffuse the water molecules and trigger the sensor,” Huanyu explained. “After we take into consideration what we learned from the pandemic in regards to the must limit the body’s contact with shared surfaces, a sensor like this might be a vital tool to stop potential contamination.”
While the device and phone app are each still within the developmental stage, the scientists hope the smart diaper will soon be made available to the general public.
